And so finally you hear from me again. I believe I left you last with my account of Madrid, the city that we grew to love. After one last crazy all nighter, we found ourselves at the bus stop waiting to board a bus to take us to Valencia, a city we knew very little about.
This photo was taken at the bus stop, just to show you all back home how we felt that morning, a mix of tiredness and sadness of leaving Madrid.
We arrived at the hostel in Valencia after another long, boring and uncomfortable bus ride. We were staying at a place called Red Nest, which turned out to be one of the best hostels we have yet stayed in. Most of our memories from Valencia are all to do with Red Nest, as for some reason no one wanted to leave this hostel. Whether it was to do with the heat, or the apparent lack of anything to do in this city, we still managed to have a great time within the walls of our home away from home. We made a lot of friends in this place, though mainly one 25 year old Scottish guy called Keifer, and 3 Aussi girls called Penny, Harriet and Sophie.
One of our two days out and about in Valencia, we went on a trip to the beach with our new found friends. It was an incredibly hot day as per normal in Valencia, with the average temperature being around 35 degrees, and on this particular day there was not a bit of wind in the air.
On the girls last night we went out for the traditional Spanish food that originated from Valencia, Paella, a mixture of rice, chicken and seafood. It was a really nice restaurant where you order one huge dish and then just share it out between everyone.
Our other day out was to visit the equivalent ot the Americas Cup Village in New Zealand. As all of you may or may not know, the next Americas Cup is going to be held in Valencia, due to the fact that Switzerland is a completely landlocked country! So being the true Kiwis that we are, we went to visit the Team New Zealand base at the Village. It was an amazingly hot day, and we sat for a long time out on a little warf watching Team New Zealand service and maintain there boats. It made for quite a nice day out.
From there we caught yet ANOTHER bus to Barcelona, the city that we were very excited to see, yet ever so slightly nervous to be in due to the stories we had been told by almost everyone who visited this city. They ranged from simple pickpocketings, to a guy being batted on the back of the head, and robbed of everything he owned while unconcious on the ground. Despite this we trucked on and found ourselves in a hostel just off of "La Rambla", the main street in Barcelona. Our first night there was one of the most uncomfortable nights of my life, we were on the 5th floor of the building, the temperature outside was high 30's, and the air conditioning on the 4th and 5th floors was broken. I got about 2 hours sleep total, in between which I managed to have 4 cold showers, and get hit on the head with an eight hundred page travel guide... long story.
Our first view of La Rambla....
...the street where you can buy ANYTHING you want!
After the first terrible night in the hostel, we set out on our first day in Barcelona. After getting turned away from the first Cathedral we visited due to our clothes (you cant show your knees or shoulders), we returned with the appropriate clothing and went inside.
Sorry for being SOOOO slack with the updates, here is a little bit and i promise, more will come!!!
Much love to all,
Vinny xo
